Open Innovation and Online Intermediaries: A Review of Theory and its Implications for Tourism
Open Innovation and Online Intermediaries: A Review of Theory and its Implications for Tourism

Summary/Abstract: The open innovation concept has become relevant to the tourism industry, which has long been one of the leading industries in adopting innovative services (Hjalager, 2010). Open innovation intermediaries can play an interesting role because they facilitate the adequate linkages among different actors which are located globally. These entities offer virtual platforms, characterized by numerous web 2.0 tools, which stimulate the interactions among organizations and increase the combination of the complementary capabilities necessary to obtain innovative tourism services. This article aims to highlight how open innovation intermediaries can be a useful solution for tourism companies which intend to adopt an open innovation approach for exploring services. This conceptual paper analyzes opportunities and challenges of the intermediation and/or the resources which these intermediaries provide. The method used for the analysis is literature review in which the authors collected data from scientific publications, reports and books through a snowball technique.

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